“At the bidding of the great god Circumstance.  Oh, my dear, my dear”—­speaking with passionate vehemence—­“don’t you know . . . don’t you understand that if only I weren’t a poor devil of a painter with my way to make in a world that can only be bought with gold—­nothing should part us ever again? . . .  But as it is—­”

Nan listened to the outburst with down-bent head.  She understood now—­oh, yes, she understood perfectly.  He loved her well enough in his own way—­but Maryon’s way meant that the love and happiness of the woman who married him would always be a matter of secondary importance.  The bitterness of her resentment deepened within her, flooding her whole being.

“‘If only!’” repeated Rooke.  “It’s the old story, Nan—­the desire of the moth for the flame.”

“The moth is a very blundering creature,” said Nan quietly.  “He makes mistakes sometimes—­perhaps imagining a flame where there is none.”

“No!” exclaimed Rooke violently.  “I made no mistake!  You loved me as much as I loved you.  I know it!  By God, do you think a man can’t tell when the woman he loves, loves him?”

“Well, you must accept the only alternative then,” she answered coolly.  “Sometimes a flame flickers out—­and dies.”

It was as though she had cut him across the face with a whip.  In a sudden madness he caught her in his arms, crushing her slender body against his, and kissed her savagely.

“There!” he cried, a note of fierce triumph ringing in his voice.  “Whether your love is dead or no, I’ll not go out of your life with nothing to call my own, and I’ve made your lips—­mine.”

Loosening his hold of her he stumbled from the room.

Nan remained just where he had left her.  She stood quite motionless for several minutes, almost as though she were waiting for something.  Then with a leap of her breath, half-sigh, half-exultation, the knowledge of what had happened to her crystallised into clear significance.

In one swift, overwhelming moment of illumination she realised that the frail blossom of love which had been tentatively budding in the garden of her heart was dead—­withered, starved out of existence ere it had quite believed in its own reality.

Maryon Rooke no longer meant anything to her.  She felt completely indifferent as to whether she ever saw him again or not.  She was free!  While he had been with her she had felt unsure, uncertain of herself.  The interview had shaken her.  Yet actually, after those first dazzled moments, the emotion she felt partook more of the dim, sad ache that the memory-haunted scent of a flower may bring than of any more vital sentiment.  But now that he had gone, it came upon her with a shock of joyful surprise that she was free—­beautifully, gloriously free!

The ecstasy only lasted for a moment.  Then with a sudden childish movement she put her hand resentfully to her face where the roughness of his beard had grazed it.  She wished he had not kissed her—­it would be a disagreeable memory.